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I was the one who reached over and turned the motor off. The dashboard light
went off a second later, plunging us into absolute darkness.
"So," I said. The silence in the car was pretty deafening. There were no cars
on the road behind us. If I opened the window, I knew the sounds of the wind
and waves would come rushing in. Instead, I just sat there.
Slowly, the darkness outside the car became less consummate. As my eyes
adjusted to it, I could even make out the horizon where the black sky met the
even blacker sea.
Michael turned his head. "It was Carrie Whitman," he said. "The girl who had
the party."
I nodded, not taking my gaze off the horizon. "I know."
"Carrie Whitman," he said again. "Carrie Whitman was in that car. The one
that went off the cliff last Saturday night."
"You mean," I said quietly, "the car you pushed off the cliff last Saturday
night."
Michael's head didn't move. I looked at him, but I couldn't quite read his
expression.
But I could hear the resignation in his voice.
"You know," he said. It was a statement, not a question. "I thought you
might."
"After today, you mean?" I reached down and undid my seatbelt. "When you
nearly killed me?"
"I'm so sorry." He lowered his head, and finally, I could see his eyes. They
were filled with tears. "Suze, I don't know how I'll ever "
"There was no seminar on extraterrestrial life at that institute, was there?"
I glared at him. "Last Saturday night, I mean. You came out here, and you
loosened the bolts on that guardrail. Then you sat and waited for them. You
knew they'd come here after the dance. You knew they'd come, and you waited.
And when you heard that stupid horn, you rammed them. You pushed them over the
side of that cliff. And you did it in cold blood."
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Michael did something surprising then. He reached out and touched my hair
where it curled out from beneath the knit watch cap I was wearing.
"I knew you'd understand," he said. "From the moment I saw you, I knew you,
out of all of them, were the only one who'd understand."
I seriously wanted to throw up. I mean it. He didn't get it. He so didn't get
it. I mean, hadn't he thought about his mother at all? His poor mother, who
had been so excited because a girl had called him? His mother, who already had
one kid in the hospital? Hadn't he thought how his mother was going to feel
when it came out that her only son was a murderer? Hadn't he thought about
thatat all?
Maybe he had. Maybe he had, and he thought she'd be glad. Because he'd
avenged what had happened to his sister. Well, almost, anyway. There were
still a few loose ends in the form of Brad & and everyone else who'd been at
that party, I suppose. I mean, why just stop at Brad? I wondered how he'd
managed to secure the guest list, and if he intended to kill everyone on it or
just a select few.
"How did you know, anyway?" he asked in what I suppose he meant to be this
tender voice. But all it did was make me want to throw up even more. " About
the guardrail, I mean? And their car horn. That wasn't in the papers."
"How did I know?" I jerked my head from his reach. "They told me."
He looked a little hurt at my pulling away from him. "Theytold you? Who do
you mean?"
"Carrie," I said. "And Josh and Felicia and Mark. The kids you killed."
His hurt look changed. It went from confused, to startled, and then to
cynical, all in a matter of seconds.
"Oh," he said with a little laugh. "Right. The ghosts. You tried to warn me
about them before, didn't you? Right here, as a matter of fact."
I just looked at him. "Laugh all you want," I said. "But the fact is,
Michael, they've been wanting to kill you for a while now. And after the stunt
you pulled today with the Rambler, I am seriously thinking about letting
them."
He stopped laughing. "Suze," he said. "Your strange fixation with the spirit
world aside, I told you: today was an accident. You weren't supposed to be in
that car. You were supposed to ride home with me. Brad was the one. Brad was
the one I wanted dead, not you."
"And what about David?" I demanded. "My little brother? He's twelve years
old, Michael. He was in that car. Did you want him dead, too? And Jake? He was
probably delivering pizzas the night your sister was hurt. Should he die for
what happened to her? Or my friend Gina? I guess she deserves to die, too,
even though she's never even been to a party in the Valley."
Michael's face was white against the bits of sky I could see through the
window behind his head.
"I didn't mean for anyone to get hurt," he said, in an oddly toneless voice.
"Anybody except for the guilty, I mean."
"Well, you didn't do a very good job," I said. "In fact, you did a lousy job.
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You really messed up. And do you know why?"
I saw his eyelids, behind his glasses, narrow.
"I think I'm starting to," he said.
"Because you tried to kill some people I happen to care about." I swallowed.
Something hard, that hurt, was growing in my throat. "And that's why, Michael,
it's going to stop. Right here. Right now."
He continued to stare at me though those narrowed eyelids.
"Oh," he said in the same expressionless voice. "It's going to stop, all
right. Believe me."
I knew what he was driving at. I almost laughed. If it hadn't been for the
painful lump in my throat, I would have.
"Michael," I said. "Don't even try. You so don't know who you're messing
with."
"No," Michael said quietly. "I guess I don't, do I? I thought you were
different. I thought you, out of everyone at school, would be able to see
things from my point of view. But I can see now that you're just like
everybody else."
"You don't have any idea," I said, "how much I wish I were."
"I'm sorry, Suze," Michael said, undoing his own seatbelt. "I really thought
you and I could be & well, friends, anyway. But I am getting the distinct
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